roadkill

Model my aunt fanny, admit it, you drove this incredibly beautiful, supremely shiny and built to within gnats breath of obscenity to the photo shoot, beautiful job sir, so very well executed, luvit. Kind regards Michael, (roadkill) from Western Australia.

G'day maaate, you clearly have a wicked imagination, a bit like my, and you do beautiful work, but I do have one question for you, what is and where did you get that amazing gold on the Harley bike. Kind regards, Michael Pederick (roadkill) From the left coast of Australia, being Perth W.A.

G'day Ulf, when I stop to read and see someone else's work I usually scroll down slowly so I can stop before I see the first pic. Then I read what ever is there then I go to the pics, so when I read your blurb I started to think that the model was not going to be all that great, WOW, was I wrong, this is going to be a work of art, very well thought out and beautifully executed, very well done sir, can't wait to see the finished build. Michael Pederick, (roadkill), from the left coast Western Australia.

Now "that's" what I would call pure art, very well done. Michael (roadkill) Perth Western Australia.

G'day from Western Australia, with regards to the Porsche pic at the top of this page, I just think it's a bit rough using a pic of the real car and passing it of as a model, OR alternatively that's one awesome model friend, absolute kudos to you, I bow before you. Roadkill, aka Michael from the left coast of the (very) big island down under.

Hey man, nice builds I'll be keeping an eye on these, also I noticed you have glass on you work bench, I was wondering if you could tell me what it's like to work on glass as I'm thinking about going that way, thanks. Kind regards Michael (aka road kill)

Hey man, I fully understand the feeling of utter despair and the temptation to just chuck it all but chucking it all at the wall would be most satisfying, having said that and read your description of your struggle with this particular kit be assured you knocked it out of the park, in fact out of your post (zip) code, from what I can see in your pics that is an awesome bit of kit, truly inspirational. Kind regards Michael Pederick (roadkill) Perth Western Australia, Or as I like to call it, the left coast of the big island down under.

Thanks gents, for looking and the praise, much appreciated. Michael.

Gentlemen one and all, thank you so very much for looking and the positive comments, much appreciated, so all I've got to do now is get the beastie finished, again thanks so much for looking. Michael.

FrankenJag, a 1/8 scale model as a version of something I saw in my head one dark stormy night, Mwahaha. Ok so this is the fourth post on my saga I call the FrankenJag. I’m almost finished building this weird contraption but I’m not sure I want to post any more pics as it’s not turning out anything like my vision and I’m having soo much trouble with it I sometimes just wanna smash it to bits or take it outside and just set the bastard thing on fire. I’ve repainted it four times, which involves re sanding, re masking, (geez masking up is tedious and takes so long, being 1/8 scale), and painting again, and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong but it just keeps coming out rubbish, so I’ve just flat out given up and the paint is now just gunna have to stay as is which is pretty BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH. This model was the first time I’ve eva tried to paint a model in two colours so that was interesting to say the least, some of this colour came out reasonable so I’m not touching that either. I knew I would have to be very careful masking up to do the second colour and found the centre line on each panel or part and very carefully marked the lines for the masking and checked that the lines matched perfectly from panel to panel. Yeah well even that didn’t work, one edge of one of the panels is 3mm too &$#%cn narrow, which is 24mm (1in for us old fart’s), in full scale, I was so surprized, disappointed, pissed off and just totally bewildered how I managed to do it when I was so careful, like measure twice cut once kinda thing but still stuffed it, and I’m not doing it again, it’s just getting too hard and I can’t afford to just keep buying paint, masking tape and such. The reasoning for the two colours is I was trying to make it look a bit like the Gulf Racing colour scheme which I really like, I think it’s a very striking colour scheme and really stands out on the race track. OK so I have decided to put the pics up anyway so you can at least see what I was trying to build. Kind regards, Michael.

Aww, mate I feel ya pain, I've painted things like that, same paint same model but one part just goes completely whacko, just weird and sooo frustrating. Michael Perth Western Australia.

Love ya work, a little disturbing but that's a good thing, just look at the stuff I make. Michael Western Australia.

Oh Trevor is there ever, here in the land down under we have a few things that really get us goin, a little annual event called "Bathurst 1000", and from there we extrapolate to our fave home (Australia) grown muscle cars, we have heaps. One of these is the XY Ford Falcon GTHO that in 1971 was a pretty awesome car, there is a very famous photo taken over drivers shoulder with the speedo just over 140 mph, this was straight off the show room floor. Some time back, not sure when a company called Icon Models released the 1/8 scale XY Ford GTHO, they also released the complete engine as a separate deal, the model had to be assembled, had fantastic detail and were an all round awesome model, and being diecast they are very heavy. At the time they sold for just over a thousand dollars, but to get one now you would probably need half the US defense budget. As you can see in the pics someone has taken the HUGE step to highly modify one, I just hope it turns out as good as this guys other works. Michael.

Bob, thank you so much, thinking up concepts is the easy part, construction is getting harder but I still enjoy it. Michael.

John and Greg, thanks guys, means a lot and inspires me to keep going and keep up with the pace so I and all of my peers don't lose interest and the project stalls. Michael.

Andreas, thank you so much for the thumbs up, really appreciate it. Michael.

Thank's Steven, much appreciated. Michael.

I just thought I'd better put up a couple pics of the winglets and spoilers.

Wow, thanks for the support and praise people, it really does mean a lot to me. As for your individual comments, Gary, thanks for the interest, it's just weird stuff that I see on different cars and a bit of my own ideas. Dennis, thanks so much for the praise and will keep posting as the build goes. David, thank you for that and rules schmules, it's a bit like some doctor guy once said, where we're going we don't need roads (or rules). Andrew, Dammit and I wuz banking on the warranty and yes I'm going to be very careful with the prep, prime, masking and paint, and I've just made it a lot harder by putting winglets and spoilers everywhere. Pierre, Yeah it is a bit weird but then that's my wheel house, life's pretty sad and plain without a bit of weird. John, Yeah I agree, the Gulf livery really is cool and a long way from the standard single colours on my previous Jags, also I had a look at the wheels and they have a hex recess on the inside so the more than likely are for/from R.C. Ray, Thanks mate yeah I think the wheels are pretty nice, a bit on the small side but that doesn't matter on this build. Sam, yeah I know it's a bit out there but life's too short to conform completely. Would love to see the pics of the Jag with the 5.0. Sonny, thanks for the kind words it just makes the building more worth while. Fred, glad you like it, I'm pretty chuffed with it so far. Andy, thanks man, I'm kinda hoping the colour scheme is really gunna make it stand out a bit.

FranckenJag, with Ford V8 power. 1/8 scale. Wow, where to start, well this one has been on the back burner of my (weird) mind for a few years now, this kind of thing happens when ya have say a 1/8 scale E-type Jag in the stash and you also have a 1/8 scale ’72 Ford Falcon GT 351 Cleveland V8 and you have spent years (way too long) building historically accurate E-type Jag models, you have a bit of a brain phart and think, hmmm why not, and I say to that, why not indeed. So, the first thing I did was to completely ignore all the front chassis frame, oh and ditch the instructions, then made a new chassis and engine mounts to install the “new” power plant which I don’t mind saying, looks freakin awesome in the tiny Jag body, mwah ha ha. Sorry nearly lost it there for a sec, nar did not, I’m super enjoying this, no rules and just winging it as I go, which of course leads to a lot of trial and error, that works but then it doesn’t ‘cos something else needs to be there etc, etc, etc and etc. So now I’m sort of getting close-ish to need to start painting and of course this opens up a whole new can of worms, (worms, why can’t it be butterflies or geckos or summit), anyhoo I’ve cut the short list down to, bright iridescent red, gloss black, satin black or my personal fave, Gulf Western, team racing colours as they really stand out and it’s better than one single colour, so there another decision made, Gulf Western it is. The wheels and tyres are going to be ones I bought, I dunno, maybe fifteen years ago and I don’t foresee any other build coming up that they would suit so that is also decided, wow look at me go two decisions in a row and no help from the wife, (or she who must be obeyed and feared), so now it’s just a case of pull finger out and get the damn thing finished.

Ha, I finally worked it out, this isn't a scale model at all, it's a full size car that your'e restoring and passing it off as a model, that's the only explanation I can come up with for the other worldly craftsmanship and the absolutely insane attention to detail, this build has been an honour to follow along, you truly are the, "Scale-Master", very well done sir, I continue to follow with humble admiration. From the left coast of the big island down under.

G'day good people, I haven't seen mention of my paint strip method and if it's already there sorry, so what I use is oven cleaner, the thing ya gotta watch, here in Australia at least is people (sooks) winged about the smell, (oh yeah extremely over powering), so they made a new version which has no punch at all, especially when trying to remove paint. The original stuff is caustic BUT, it removes paint and chrome plating completely with minimal assist from an old toothbrush, as mentioned in one of the earlier posts I just put the part(s) and/or bodies in a zip lock bag, spray a good dose in the bag (at arms length) seal it up good an tight, shake it a bit but being a clear bag you can move the parts or product around till it's all done, five mins max. Then using an old sive (don't tell the wife) and wash the parts etc (gently, the stuff is still caustic) out of the bag into the sive then just keep washing can reintroduce tooth brush about here, some times I like to do a finish wash using detergent, dry well with good quality cloth and paint, just as a side note I found dismantling really old models to be a tich problematic so one thing I tried was to put the car or what ev' in the freezer for a couple of days. Kind Regards, Michael Pederick, Perth, Western Australia. Aka, roadkill.

You ask what do I think, I think you've done a sterling job on all three cars, but I was wondering what the scale unless I missed it somewhere in your post. I've done a similar thing but mine are in 1/8 scale so compared to your's they are huge, I sometimes wonder if it's easier in large scale or not, my jury is still out on that one. I'll post a pic or two of mine if that's ok with you. All the best and happy modelling. Kind regards, Michael Pederick. (aka roadkill)

Yeah, thanks Ray, I figured I'd go for a bobber look and then decided, screw it and went bonkers with the colours and used some paints that I couldn't remember what I bought them for. Michael.